


Niceties

by lightgetsin



Category: House
Genre: M/M, Making Up, Mind Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-22
Updated: 2006-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:43:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightgetsin/pseuds/lightgetsin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>House is being . . . nice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Niceties

It was an intense day, the sort that had him juggling the details of a dozen different cases in his head, moving fast enough to get to everyone, slow enough not to make mistakes. He and Cuddy intersected in the elevator after noon, and she smiled and nodded and said “go talk to House.”

“Does he need a consult?” Wilson asked, flattening against the wall to make room for a wheelchair.

“No,” said Cuddy, and powerwalked out on the next floor with a distracted wave. Wilson pressed two fingertips to the bridge of his nose and sighed. House was up to something already, with the jagged edges of the argument not even beginning to knit together yet. Wilson resolutely didn’t want to know, and he had patients to see.

House’s ducklings piled into his office that evening as he was signing off on charts and avoiding the prospect of going home to a hotel room. The three of them lined up in front of his desk, big eyed and jumpy.

“Can I help you with something?” Wilson asked, putting down his pen.

Cameron, in the middle, received simultaneous nudges from Chase and Foreman. “There’s something wrong with House,” she said.

A brief stab of fear clenched his hands on the edge of the desk, but Wilson forced himself to relax. She’d said House, not his leg, and if something were seriously wrong they wouldn’t be here talking to him. “Oh?” he prompted tiredly.

The three of them looked at each other, conducting a brief pantomime of pointing – ‘you’ ‘no you’ ‘no him.’ And then the dam broke, all at once.

“He poured me a cup of coffee,” said Chase.

“He said he liked my earrings,” said Cameron.

“He asked what I’m doing on my vacation,” said Foreman.

“told the pharmacist to have a nice day–“

“Told Cuddy her outfit beautifully balanced professional and attractive—“

“Held the door—“

Wilson through out a hand, and the flow stopped. “So, let me see if I’ve got this right – you’re worried because he’s being nice?”

“There are any number of neurological conditions which can cause sudden mood shifts,” said Foreman. “A Serotonin imbalance, or major tissue damage from tumor or hemorrhage.”

“He could have drastically upped his Vicodin intake,” said Chase. “Though you’d think that would make him unconscious instead.”

“Possibly a drug interaction,” said Cameron.

“His pupils aren’t dilated,” Chase said, then paused. “More than usual.”

Wilson let his forehead come to rest on his fingertips. “He’s not hemorrhaging or overdosing or cycling through mania,” he said to his blotter.

“He’s not?” said Cameron.

“No.” He sighed, briefly considered sending them on their way and forgetting about the whole thing. But they would just be back tomorrow with even stranger stories – perhaps House would start tipping the cafeteria staff or volunteering for clinic duty. Wilson was briefly tempted to let him run with it, see just how far he could go. House was a formidable force for, well, whatever he put his mind to, and Wilson was rather curious to know just what results he could produce with the sweetness and light routine.

But it was a silent, empty hotel room. And he was hungry. And he’d been tired and overwhelmed last night. And.

“Don’t worry about House,” he said, standing. “I’ll take care of hi--it. Go on home, and have a good weekend.”

They eyed him with collective uncertainty, consulted silently with each other, then shrugged in near perfect unison. Wilson decided not to tell them how creepy they could get sometimes. He wished them goodnight again, saw them off down the hall, and turned his steps to House’s office.

House was reclined in his chair, both feet up, earbuds dangling, a hardcover braced against his good thigh for a writing surface. He appeared to be . . . doing paperwork.

“Hi,” he said casually, glancing up as Wilson came in. “How was your day?”

“Okay,” said Wilson. “The Staffer girl isn’t responding as well as we hoped to the latest round of chemo, but there’s a new trial I want to get her in on.” He cleared his throat a little self-consciously. “And how was yours?”

“All right,” said House, leaning back and twirling his pen. “The patient should be able to go home in about a week.”

“Freaky fat tumors girl?” Wilson asked.

“Cindy,” said House.

“Okay, that’s just disturbing,” said Wilson.

“What?” said House, blinking limpidly.

Wilson had the sudden urge to throttle him. “Being nice doesn’t count as being nice when you do it just to get me to talk to you,” he said. “To make a point.”

“Worked, didn’t it?” said House. Smugly.

“Look,” Wilson said. “I had a crap day yesterday. I was tired and you stepped on my last nerve. But you know it wouldn’t kill you to be a bit more considerate sometimes.”

“Hmm,” House hmm’ed. “You know, the polite thing for someone to do in your situation is apologize for coming after me like a rabid hyena.”

“Are you going to apologize for being provocatively sarcastic?” Wilson demanded.

House blinked. “Maybe,” he said liltingly.

A headache pulsed strongly behind Wilson’s eyes. “You think the social graces are just a cover for insincerity,” he said. “Not being polite isn’t the same thing as being truthful, and being courteous is not the same thing as lying.”

“I know that,” said House, and he looked suddenly a little stung.

“Sure,” said Wilson. “What you don’t know is that courtesy is a language, and sometimes it’s the only thing two people have in common.” His second marriage had endured an extra six months, at least, because both of them knew how to say please and thank you.

“It’s not the only thing we have in common,” House said certainly.

Wilson sighed out a long breath. He reached up to loosen his tie. “No. That’s true.” He hesitated. A concession, of sorts, in a long line of them. But he was even more tired today than he had been yesterday, and there were shadows under House’s eyes, too, and he’d shaved this morning, exposing the sculpted line of his jaw and the fullness of his mouth. “I’m sorry,” Wilson said.

House’s feet slid to the floor, and he tossed book, papers, and pen to the desk with a flourish. “Thank you. Now take me home and cook something nice – I’m _starving_.” He worked his way to his feet, hand braced on the desk, and negotiated cane and jacket with awkward, long-limbed grace. He paused as he came around the desk, looking into Wilson’s eyes and smiling. The real one, the one that didn’t make people want to punch him. “Please,” he said.


End file.
